JOIN USIran was under increased diplomatic pressure on Friday after an International Atomic Energy Agency report said it was expanding its controversial nuclear programme and had “hampered” the UN watchdog’s work.
The report added to criticism of Iran’s nuclear stand by UN chief Ban Ki-moon at a two-day Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran. Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei opened the summit with a speech railing against the United States, the “Zionist wolves” of Israel and the “dictatorship” of the UN Security Council, which are at the forefront of the pressure directed at his country.
He said Iran would “never” cease its nuclear energy activities, regardless of UN and Western sanctions, and insisted that the programme was not aimed at developing nuclear weapons, whose use he called an “unforgiveable sin.”
The IAEA report said Iran had doubled its capacity to enrich uranium at its underground Fordo nuclear facility by installing, but not yet switching on, more than 1,000 more centrifuges.
It said UN inspectors wanting to see part of a military base in Parchin, outside Tehran, which is suspected of hosting tests of explosives that could be used in a nuclear warhead, had been “significantly hampered” by months of refused access, what looked like intensive scrubbing and scraping at the site, and the use of covers to shield the site from satellite cameras.